Page 26 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Silas’s carriage moved through narrow, grime-streaked streets, its wheels clattering against the cobblestones.

He leaned out the window, shouting instructions to the driver as he desperately tried to recreate the path he and the Ghost of Christmas Present had taken.

Since the spirit could have easily transported them directly there, he had to believe they’d walked the route so that Silas could find his way back.

The unexpected kindness of that act was not lost on him.

A particularly rough area came into view, each building more run-down than the last, the crumbling facades sparking his memory.

The streets were oddly quiet on this Christmas morning, giving him the eerie impression that he was all alone in the world.

The thought didn’t give him the comfort it once would have.

“We can’t be far,” he muttered, as much to himself as to the driver, the fear that he’d never find them growing.

A few moments later, his gaze landed upon the building where Grace and Emmaline lived.

“Stop!” Silas cried.

The carriage pulled to a rattling halt on the side of the road, and Silas jumped down, his boots splashing in a filthy puddle. Hope surged within him, and he dashed across the street.

Inside the building, the tenement’s staircase groaned under Silas’s weight as he hurried up it to the next landing, each creak echoing his anticipation and dread as he climbed.

A thin wail of despair came from somewhere below, and on the second floor, the walls rattled with shouts of anger.

The sounds disconcerted him, and he wondered how Grace and Emmaline could bear it.

You’ve given them no choice but to bear it.

Filled with shame, he climbed one more set of stairs and reached her door at last, taking a deep breath before he knocked.

Grace answered almost immediately, as lovely as she’d been ten years ago, though thin and wan. She wore a threadbare gown of faded green, her once-bright golden locks mostly hidden beneath a brown scarf she’d wrapped around her head and neck for warmth.

“Grace,” he said, her name spilling from his lips, weighted with all the emotion he had thought he’d forgotten how to feel.

Her head jerked up, her blue eyes wide with shock. For a moment, she was frozen, but then the carefully constructed guard in her gaze crumbled at the sight of him.

Emmaline lay on a bed behind her, her small body nearly lost beneath a mound of ragged blankets, her resemblance to him painfully clear. Her hair spread around her face like a dark halo, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

Grace straightened, her posture rigid as if bracing for the blow she was certain would follow. Silence stretched between them, taut and uncertain. “You,” she managed, the word trembling with disbelief and accusation. “Why are you—”

“Are you an angel come to answer my prayers?” Emmaline’s voice, soft and dreamy, cut through the tension. Her eyes fluttered open, piercingly green, and fixed on Silas with innocent wonder.

The question struck him, leaving him momentarily breathless. How could she still believe in such things? How could she possibly look to him to save her, when he was the cause of all her suffering?

Grace left the doorway and moved to their daughter’s side, her expression torn between anger and something softer as she smoothed the child’s unruly hair. “It’s not an angel, Emmy,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off Silas. “Just a ghost.”

Her words pierced him, though he had no defense.

It was what he had become—a specter from the past. His voice wavered as he moved toward the bed and knelt beside it, the grandeur of his attire absurd in the squalid setting.

“You’re unwell,” he said, reaching for words that might mend more than illness. “I’m here to help you.”

“She’s not yours to worry over,” Grace snapped, though her voice cracked.

“Isn’t she?” he asked, his heart breaking. “I’m so sorry, Grace. I didn’t know. I never would have stayed away if I’d known.”

She looked at him, really looked, as if seeing the gulf he had crossed to find them, the effort it had cost him. Her blue eyes softened, if only slightly, before hardening again. “What do you want, Silas? Why are you really here after all this time?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. How could he explain it? Any of it? He couldn’t even explain the events of last evening to himself. “To make things right,” he replied, the words foreign and raw on his tongue. “To—”

“We don’t need your charity,” Grace cut in, her voice fierce but lacking its previous certainty. Emmaline’s hand gripped hers, small and frail, a reminder of how much they did need, how much she couldn’t provide.

Emmaline gazed at him, a wistful smile playing on her lips even though fever clouded her eyes. “He looks like me, doesn’t he, Mummy?”

Silas’s heart wrenched at the tender trust in her soft voice, at how close he had come to never hearing it.

His hands shook, not from the cold but from the terror of hope.

“Please,” he said, his voice stripped bare.

“Please, Grace. Let me help. I know I can’t change the past, but I can provide warmth, shelter, medicine, good food, a doctor… ”

“And if I say no?” Grace asked, her voice quivering, her distrust of him obviously softened by her fear for their child.

“Then I will leave,” he replied, the weight of the words nearly crushing him. But they were true. He would leave if that’s what she needed from him. Although he would make sure she had the things she needed so that their daughter could be made well.

The building groaned, a wail of wind through broken windows, and the meager light from the candle cast long, wavering shadows on the walls as if fighting not to go out.

Grace bit her lip, obviously weighing her stubborn pride against the lifeline he was offering her. But she obviously loved Emmaline more than her own life. He knew what choice she’d make. He just needed to give her a few minutes to make it herself.

“All right,” she said, the words more a question than a declaration, edged with tentative hope. “She needs more help than I can give her, Silas. I don’t know what to do.”

Overwhelming relief burst through Silas.

He nodded, too choked for words, and shifted closer to Emmaline.

He wouldn’t let them down. He’d do everything in his power to ensure that next Christmas, Emmaline could chase Benedict’s children around the great hall of Snowdon Grange, as happy and healthy as they were.

“Come, little one,” he whispered. “Let me take you and your mama somewhere safe and warm. A doctor will look in on you and see what can be done.”

“That would truly be a Christmas miracle,” Grace murmured, putting her hand to her mouth to hold back a choked sob.

“I’ll carry her, Grace,” he said, tucking a thin blanket around the child with a tenderness he hadn’t known he possessed.

Grace’s eyes widened, wavering between trust and doubt. “We must hurry. Her fever...” The words caught in her throat as she moved to help, gathering a few of their meager belongings and struggling into a threadbare cloak

He lifted Emmaline, every movement careful, cradling her so that her head rested against his shoulder.

The blanket he wrapped around her seemed as inadequate against the chill as the small fire was against the room’s vast cold.

He should have thought to bring some blankets from the carriage up with him.

The girl’s breath came in soft, irregular gasps, interspersed with wet-sounding coughs. Her small hands clutched at Silas’s coat as if seeking an anchor. The gesture tightened something in his chest, his hope so potent it stole his breath.

Grace hovered beside him, a wild urgency in her stance. “Let’s go. Please.”

With swift but careful strides, Silas moved toward the door. Emmaline was cradled close, his grip fierce yet tender. Her delicate frame felt impossibly light. “I’ve got you now,” he murmured. “All will be well. I promise you, little one.”

The air outside was a sharp, biting shock. The cold wrapped around them, urging haste.

“The carriage,” Silas said. “It’s not far. Just across the street.”

“Thank God,” Grace murmured, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides.

The snow crunched beneath Silas’s feet, a staccato rhythm as he rushed to warmth.

His breath clouded in front of him, ragged yet determined.

He had not moved so quickly since… when?

Since the days when life was filled with something other than regret.

Now, he was filled with purpose, and it felt… good. Surprisingly good.

He adjusted Emmaline in his arms, nodding at one of the outriders, who had already lowered the steps. Once inside, he lowered his precious burden onto the forward-facing seat, tucking piles of blankets and the warming stones around her frail form.

The door creaked as Grace joined them, pulling it shut against the cold and everything they were leaving behind.

“Home,” Silas called to the driver, his voice urgent. The wheels started with a crunch, and Grace exhaled, long and deep. Relief was etched into every line of her face. However much she might distrust him, she’d been at the end of her rope.

Silas glanced at her, a silent question in his eyes. He knew how she must despise the thought of allowing him to do anything for them, but the fact that she was, that they were both here with him now, showed just how terrified she must be.

She pressed a hand to Emmaline’s fevered cheek. “Tell your driver to make haste,” she said. “We can talk about all of this, how you came to be here, what your father did… later. For now, we just need to save our daughter.”